XU Lele

(1955– )

Title

Teaching the classical canon

Place of origin

China

Year

1997

Media category

Painting

Materials used

album leaf; ink and colour on paper

Dimensions

37.0 x 58.0cm image/sheet

Signature & date

Signed and dated u.r., in Chinese, inscribed in black ink, “Le…the year of Dingchou (1997)”. Signed u.r., in Chinese, stamped in red ink, “Le [artist's seal]". Signed u.r., in Chinese, stamped in red ink, “Xu [artist's seal]".

Credit

Purchased 1997

Accession number

365.1997

Location

Not on display

Further information

Xu Lele is a young female artist from Nanjing who brings the great tradition of literati painting in China into a humorous, almost satirical, contemporary idiom. The scene of the scholar seated, in his long flowing robes, on the dais and beside him the young acolyte reading the text, surrounded by the scholar's accoutrements of scrolls, inkstone and brush, is a typical composition of the Ming dynasty (1368-1644). But here the amusingly droll expressions on the faces of scholar and acolyte, and the eloquent modelling of the brush washes, betray a late twentieth-century modernity. Xu belongs to a group of artists living and working in Nanjing, many of whom have received some 'Western' art training, and who are committed to instilling Chinese painting traditions with the spirit and imagination of the modern age.

Art Gallery Handbook, 1999. pg. 266.

Bibliography (1)

Bruce James, Art Gallery of New South Wales handbook, 'Asian Collection: East Asia', pg. 246-287, Domain, 1999, 266. The colour illustration in this book actually refers to Accession no. 366.1997, Xu Lele, 'Seeking for a line in a Poem'.

Exhibition history (1)

Chinese New Literati Painting, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 23 Aug 1997–05 Oct 1997